November 22, 2014

Useful conversions first - close to the Everglades:Water and Math in the
Caloosahatchee Watershed
One acre-foot represents VOLUME and it equals:

326,000 U.S. gallons

43,560 cubic feet

1233 cubic meters

893 gallons per day for 365 days

Your bathtub holds about 5
cubic feet. How big is the Caloosahatchee River ?

In the dry season, the
Caloosahatchee River flow can go as low as 300 ft3 (0.007 acre-foot) per second,
or 18,000 ft3 (0.4 acre-foot) per minute, or 1.1 million ft3 (25 acre-feet) per
hour, or 26 million ft3 (600 acre-feet) per day.

In the rainy season, the
Caloosahatchee River flows at about 2,000 ft3 (0.05 acre-foot) per second, or
120,000 ft3 (16 acre-feet) per minute, or 7.2 million ft3 (170 acre-feet) per
hour or 170 million ft3 (4,000 acre feet per day) per day.

The Caloosahatchee watershed
contains 1408 square miles, or 900,000 acres. It receives an average of 53"
(4.5') of rain every year. That comes to 4.1 million acre-feet of rain that
drains into the soil, runs off hardened parking lots and roads, or
evaporates (Courtesy of Friends of the Charlotte Harbor Aquatic Preserves)

LITERACY

And now, please allow me a to add a few words, a little rumination perhaps - on "science" and some attitudes.
First of all, the above is NOT really "math" or "science" - it is really arithmetic and it is part of what is generally labeled as "literacy". Just like reading and writing, it is an indivisible part of our civilization - and functionality. We need to know how to count our money, right ? We are priding ourselves as being literate. Well, are we really ?
Have you heard of "functional illiteracy" ? It has to do with, for example, writing a message that we post on our fridge - that could be understood by others. Others who are supposed to not only read it - but interpret it and act on it.
Surprise - there is 48.7% "functionally illiterate" people in the USA !
And this is not even considering math or arithmetic skills.

Governor Scott entered history with his 'disclaimer' that "I'm not a scientist". That is true, he has not been trained as one. We can only hope that he does comprehend some level of "science" and can act correspondingly. Also, that he can read and interpret the message on his fridge posted there for him by the experts, the highly trained science people.
It all has to do with literacy and functional literacy.
And at the bottom of it all is EDUCATION - which relies on a certain level of INTELLIGENCE that we claim to posses as human species.

Regarding those two categories (education and intelligence), it does not do much good when highly visible and role-model public personalities, a governor, TV or radio hosts, politicians, celebrities or such, publicly declare that he/she is "no good in math" - and we are really talking only simplistic addition/subtraction skills.Such a confession does happen every once in a time - much too often in our 'intellectually' dominated media where people do not seem to read and 'think' numbers. Avoiding them since childhood. Hmmm -
Can you imagine the impact of such a public statement ?
Leading by example ? This type of a 'disclaimer' is not only dumb, it is actually a very-very serious intellectual public crime -
Crime on our children who see, hear or read it - and form their attitudes. What a role example, what motivation !
What a leadership.

About Me

What about ME ? I don't think that I am all that important. I am perhaps a pragmatic and technical person - and a dreamer at the same time - a Scientist and an Engineer: "Let's get things done" - to the best of our most conteporary knowledge and with all in the decision-making process being really honest !
I am excited about the challenges the Everglades present nowadays. There have been errors in the past in how the delicate Everglades system has been handled. Now let's see just how we can correct those errors.
I appreciate our ecology that supports our lifestyle - for a price. Human civilizations rose and fell because of water availability. The fascinating Everglades are the largest eco-experiment in the world - can we and are we willing to pay the price for setting it right ? And - are we completely (cross-your-heart) honest in our decision-making, all greed aside ?